


Frenemy of Nature

by Slayitalldown



Category: ARK: Survival Evolved
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Survival, character journal, game fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:38:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slayitalldown/pseuds/Slayitalldown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rivia Geralt is a survivor, cast naked and alone on an island populated with creatures that have been extinct for millennia. Without knowing how and why she is there, she is forced to rely on her wits to navigate the harsh wilderness and build herself a home and an army of minions to tackle the great mystery of the island. Somewhere in her nightmares are whispers of creatures that have never lived, that live only on the island, to be summoned and conquered. While she considers the dinosaurs monsters, she can feel it, in her heart of hearts that the true monsters are out there, somewhere... waiting to be found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

You would think that in 4,202 days, or eleven years, six months and three days – gosh I’ve been here a while - I would have found time in one of those increments to start a journal.   
Set aside a little time in the evening, sit down at my hand-crafted desk and under a lightly flickering torch, chronicling the events of each day for posterity… but my life doesn’t work like that. 

In eleven and a half years, every day has been a struggle to survive. 

Some days, I don’t. I die, my body becomes a husk, and I have a few moments to choose whether or not I'm cast back into the wilderness to try again, or if I'm organised, be 'respawned' in a lumpy, brittle bed with an itchy wrist taking what I am absolutely certain is my brand new lung's first gasp of air.

I hate thinking about it. Am I in a vat somewhere being Xeroxed on demand? So I don't think about it. Besides, I have a LOT of work to do.

Good thing I don't sleep.

On the plus side, brand new body comes with perks. When you're torn apart by raptor teeth or pulverised by rex jaws or eviscerated by piranha, you just know it's gonna leave a scar. New body, no evidence. Makes it easier to forget. It's weird how you can endure that kind of pain - over and over again - and just kind of be okay with it after a while. It's just what happens. If you're lucky, you won't be poisoned and you'll die quickly to numerous sets of teeth that want to eat you, or smashed to bits by an angered and defensive herbivore. There are a bunch of ways to die, and die quick on this island.

All of them are universally agonising.

I wonder what crime I could have possibly committed. I seem so clever, so capable and so empowered, but I’m trapped in this place where life and death are a rinse-and-repeat cycle, every moment I survive in the same body is a battle in an ongoing war… and I think that whatever I did, I did it well. Perhaps it wasn’t a crime, perhaps I have been saved and this is my only refuge. Perhaps I am a hero and when I died, my copy was trapped, my soul imprisoned in this clever design so I can live on, always fighting. I’m not human anymore, really, but I’m the best and closest approximation, and my existence is an ongoing and generous gift. So much labour of love, just for dirt that I can stand on. The struggle is so real to me, the effort, the hours... I wonder, when I’m able to, if this isn’t a punishment, after all, but some sort of gift.

What does a warrior do when they have nothing but time?

It sounds exhausting, and it is. I wonder if I was split into pieces, and that other parts of me exist in other realms… and if I wonder for too long, if I ponder these great mysteries… something tries to eat me. I wonder about the creatures, too. They appear in all kinds of variations. Their colours, their capacities, they seem to grow more fantastical with each year I'm here. The strangest part though is they die, and they die permanently, becoming a bland, gamey meat, acres of soft tanned hide and various other resources. Nothing is wasted here, nothing is without purpose. Even a beloved pet, torn asunder by a wild animal full of blood lust, can be harvested, however sad that activity may be.

I call them monsters, it is my most virulent expletive. They are monsters, I am sure they are created. The towers, I don’t yet know what their purpose is, but I know that they are more than landmarks to guide me to my self-made sanctuary, they are responsible in some way. I don’t know how. It’s probably not true, and they are guardians against some terrible horror, or they are simply left behind in this abandoned place, but the monsters come in waves and I know with absolute certainty that those with pointed teeth hunger for my flesh more than any other kind. I don't quite understand why - I've found my own discarded shell and it's made of the same uniform steaks and soft tanned hide.

As much as I loathe the wild monsters, it’s possible to tame them, yoke their strength and the longer I spend time with these gentler versions of themselves, the more I rely on them. I know that I can breed them, and I look forward to a day when I have the resources to do this. So far, I am simply proud of any I can keep alive. Once they are tame, they are gentle and protective, a member of the tribe and I feel enormous pain when they lose their lives. It happens, far too frequently. I have acquired and lost too many to name them all here. The island is unforgiving, and even the most powerful can fall, and fall fast. Despite the pain of their loss, I adore them, the more I grow to know them and their abilities the more fascinated I am. Half the reason I have no time for introspection is that to own a dinosaur, or other kind of fish, mammal or avian, is a struggle. It's a mission, from start to finish. Each female of the species is an egg-layer, and those eggs can be be re-purposed with fruit and vegetables to make feed that infuses the creatures with greater capabilities than they would ordinarily have if they stayed wild. Hunting them, rendering them unconscious and taking the time to complete the taming process can result in spectacular creatures so devoted and loyal you don't know whether you want to tame more or reproduce them so you can be smothered by hundreds of them.

My goals constantly change. I know that my own lives are somewhat infinite, but the lives of my pets are not. I don’t really think this place is a punishment. I think, in all truth, it is a test, to try my faith and test my patience. The stronger I become, the more sure I am that I will survive in this place, maybe even solve the mystery of it.

I am not alone, there are others. I know that this island isn’t the only island of its kind, there are many versions in many worlds, some more gentle, some more fierce. On this island, I know that nature itself is my opponent, and that I have nothing to fear from tribes or survivors. We help one another as much or as little as we like. Many of my animal companions have come to me through the generosity of those whose wealth is in their pets, and I hope one day to do the same for new survivors finding their feet. I have plenty of the flying lizards, more than I know what to do with! 

I set goals for myself. The challenges of this island grow and change, and I hope to do the same to keep up. Somewhere in the wilderness or beyond are creatures so fantastical I can't even imagine what they are. Some are magnificent, some are pure terror and all of them are impossible.

And yet, here we are. What a time to be alive.

… for now...


	2. Another Journal Entry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting better at remember I should keep a journal... I've remembered twice now!

Seventeen years, four months, one week and two days.

Truthfully, I am surprised the time can be summed up into such a small number. It feels so much longer!  
To survive life’s challenges, the best thing you can do is prepare for the ones you know about and strive to do your best in the face of the ones that come as complete surprises.   
Saladin the Lion was never replaced. The snowy lands far to the north are still a place of unknown terrors to me. I explore them… but the events that unfold when I do terrify me to my core!

It occurred to me some time ago that I need help. The great tribes, though friendly, could do little to aid me with the sweat of their own brows. Walls are always needing to be higher, teeth sharper, and wings swifter… the island hungers for the blood of her human infestation. Between our clever but feeble hands and the ripe treasures of the earth are the conduits of creatures, trained to exert themselves on our behalf for food and love. 

I negotiated hard, and was welcomed into a tribe with another survivor, a veteran of this strange place.

Oh, what a fool I have been…

All those years ago, when I felt the pain of my losses so keenly, the prospect of being protected inside a great set of walls but the freedom to build my own was a refuge I sorely needed. Snarky gained a beautiful companion, the elegant and feminine Serenity. The bright, clear morning light beams through her pale lavender sail and gives her an ethereal glow, her gentle grey skin makes her seem like a monstrous palfrey. I love that creature. I never thought I would possess her.

Spinosours as an enemy are devastating. They glide in the water, paddling their webbed feet to great speeds, and on land they shake the earth, smashing crafted wood and thatch to splinters in seconds with their blade-like claws, tearing the flesh off any creature they find with their elongated snout and needle-like shark teeth. Their bite range is enormous and they pounce gleefully, with a feline pleasure in destruction and ruin. Brightly coloured, impossible to mistake, the Spinosours of this island have reduced me to ruin more times than I can count. 

I hated them for years, with every fiber of my being, and dreaded the sight of them.

This changed when I found myself on cliff above the grey and purple wonder I later named Serenity. She was glorious. I was filled with purpose that day, sent by my tribemate to gather some resource or another, when I spotted her in the water below me. She was laying waste to a turtle, sturdy creatures who’s hard shell make their sweet flesh a bit of a challenge to carve out. I knew immediately that if she was of a high-enough quality, I would make her my own.

This particular turtle was having none of her silliness on this day, pecking her as much as she bit him. She was well occupied as I formulated a plan.

In my many pockets, I had a small supply of arrows, dipped in a powerful solution that renders wild creatures senseless while their will is eroded until they lose that instinctive and terrifying need to KILL ALL HUMANS. They are painful, I’m sure, but a Spinosour will endure two dozen or more right in the most delicate curves of their snout if they think they can bite you. As the turtle succumbed, I took the deep breaths I needed to calm myself, and fired upon her. 

When a Spinosour turns its full attention upon you, time will slow down for a moment, then race to catch up as the creature lunges. They are merciless. I shrieked when she lunged for me, even knowing I was too high for her to reach. That power inside them is almost a demonic sorcery, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had made it to my high vantage point, and chewed me to bits. But she was thwarted, and stood below me, her tail swaying, her eyes fixed on me, while I plunked arrow after arrow into her face. I felt a malicious satisfaction in the attack. Revenge, of a sorts, for all the pain her species had caused me. 

Serenity was too magnificent, and too powerful, for me to simply kill, and when her body slumped against the rocky wall I felt an elation I hadn’t felt before. I put a great cry out across the island, a crowing brag I couldn’t contain, and was immediately applauded… and instructed on what to do next. 

Some achievements on this island are universal, and the felling of a mighty beast into the hands of its new master is a cause for celebration. 

There are few survivors that I trust more than the ones known as ‘The Strangers’. In a demonstration of some bone-deep generosity I am yet to properly understand, one of them flew immediately to my location to examine my new prize, while she slumbered lazily up against her rock.

Many times before, a stranger would appear, take in my efforts and toss me a wrapped parcel that would solve all my problems at once. The Strangers had come to me before, silent and calm, raining meat upon me from the first T-Rex I ever saw, while I stood warily over a pale pink raptor. When the raptor stood up and greeted me with its eager-to-help shriek, The Strangers flew down on a bird that took up the sky and boggled my mind. The bird, who I later came to call “Q-Air” (though his real name was Pride) dipped its head and wings with an ethereal drum-song and my new raptor and I raced away. From then on, I knew The Strangers were good folk, and should always be remembered as such.

When The Stranger arrived, he brought me a parcel of kibble, an item of unspeakable value.

The creatures of this island come in many forms. The avian-reptiles, who lay eggs, occupy great spaces and often murder me in the rudest way possible. The birds – true avian raptors, magnificent flying eagles. Aquatic monsters, who don’t seem to lay eggs but will happily lay waste to anything that dares linger in the water, and mammals, a feisty bunch of misfits who can stomp, gore or bash you to death on a whim. Wolves and lions live among them but luckily they prefer to roam the snow with the eagles, mammoths and oddly small deer. The birds and reptiles though, provide their masters with a precious commodity – eggs.

Eggs, when randomly dropped through some odd ovulation cycle, can be cooked with various meats, berries, cultivated vegetables, fibers and water to make a nourishing blend that infuses creatures being tamed with a magical boost. They blossom, through a long process of drugging and starvation to well-fed, highly specialised weapons or tools. Nothing is merely a pet, even the adorably dense little dodos do their share to nourish their zippy, leathery cousins. What the stranger dropped on me was a meal for the spino that would ensure she rose as a mighty warrior. I was grateful then, and I am still grateful now. The Stranger has brought me these bundles time and time again, and Serenity stands shoulder to shoulder, even now, with two midnight-black companions, who came into my care the same way.

With Serenity, I had a new way to hunt, and master my domain. 

She came with me, to my new tribe.

My tribe-recruiter had tested my faith before inviting me, by gifting me with an egg – a T-Rex egg. In his large, well equipped space, Ridiculous the T-Rex crackled from an egg as an infant no taller than me, flexing her little fingers and demanding to be fed. For hours, then later, days, Serenity and I ran meat from the sandy riverbanks to her greedy   
belly. 

I passed this test, I think, and I became a member of the Pack.

Five years later, much has changed. 

I was unaware that the Pack was presided over by another. She was less friendly, bossy and frankly, rude. In the weeks after my unity into Pack, and the subsequent building of my herds, I was thwarted by her tight control for a time.

Trade is the heart of our island. We can scorn, swear, slander and dismiss one another in heated battles over one opinion or another, but when it comes to business, all grievances fall to the sides and we nut out our trades to get the best deals. 

I adopted this quickly. I learned after Ridiculous that breeding was far more enjoyable to me than the brutality of taming. Baby dinosaurs are beautiful, sweet little creatures that swell into treasures. I adopted the practice whole-heartedly. Some breeders are wealthy enough to dismiss the offspring they produce if it doesn’t meet their desired standards, and Q-Air made a habit of bringing me new adoptions in need of a bit of love and care. Once grown, I found that if they didn’t fit into my herd and I couldn’t use them, they were more useful to me as trades. 

One such trade involved a spino. He was an odd creature, a kind of melon-orange with a purple sail, his colors were mismatched and he was both odd to look at and clumsy as a hunter. I decided that I was not that attached to him, and traded him for a commodity I was struggling to keep up with – spark powder.  
The happy new owner arrived with more spark-powder than I could carry, but it wasn’t until I attempted to release Spunky the Spino that I discovered he wasn’t in my possession to release.

I raged against this atrocity - at length, and in public. 

This was my first experience of being governed by another. In my own tribe, I was wholly in command, though a little afraid of bigger tribes, and worried that if I slept too long, the bonds between me and my creatures would fray past breaking point and I would lose them to other survivors, lurking the island as raiders. Joining with another tribe had seemed to me the best solution. I had access to better creatures and permission to breed my own from them, help to maintain and grow my base and a guiding hand to see me through from ‘dying peasant’ to mighty survivor. Being governed wasn’t something I had expected. This ‘silent partner’ was suddenly a threat, and I was immediately defensive.  
My dowry of dinosaurs was small, but my time and effort was endless. I was prepared to work hard to get where I wanted to be, equipped with the best creatures so I could perform tasks at a thought like my much-admired tribe-inviter. He seemed so full of knowledge, no task was beyond him. No sooner did he think it than it was done. I came eager to learn at his feet, and for a time, I did.

Raging against the team leader, and admonishing her publicly (while using a quieter voice to swear violently) did the trick and whatever sorcery she performed was undone, but the insult has stayed with me. I detest her, still. Leaving my current tribe to make choices alone consumes my thoughts. While I am left to my own devices, and rarely interfered with, a looming danger hangs over my head. I am not treated as equal. I have gone months now, without contact. She recruits members I know nothing about, who don’t speak to me, and my tribe-recruiter’s base lays empty of his presence. 

A great blight came, several months ago, and it swept through the ranks of every creature with a master. It sapped their strength and weakened them drastically. Unequaled predators were reduced to mewling kitten overnight, and as survivors, the threat to our beloved creatures despaired us all. 

My tribemate chose to sleep. He cursed this blight and vowed to sleep forever if need be, and I haven’t seen him since. What arrangement he made without our leader, I’ll never know. I don’t anticipate his return, and yet the unchanged state of his herd gives me hope. I know I don’t have permission to utilize his creatures, so I don’t, but I worry for them. I spent so much time among them, naming more than a few myself. Many I helped raise from birth. I miss him, in a way, but I have enjoyed a great deal of peace in his absence. My herd has swelled, and while I was nearly ruined by the blight, returning my focus to breeding (which I was nearly done with before the blight came and ruined my efforts) I am once again laying down eggs and praying fervently that the hatchling will possess the might powers I need, so I can put it immediately to work. 

I pray a little too, that they will be comely, and I have been amused of late by little spinos with purple fins. Serenity began a love that has become an obsession. Her tar-colored cousins have brought new shades of purple to the mix, and she has since retired from the breeding circle, but she still dazzles me with her prettiness, and I make a point of admiring her often. 

I have made friends on the island. I feel less alone. The hours I spend fill me with hope and the giddy thrill of being a true survivor. Through blights, turkey invasions, babies being swallowed by the earth and the appearance of ever-mystifyingly exotic new creatures to swell the ranks of the constant spawns, I eagerly await the future, and work hard to prepare for whatever comes forth next to bite me on my well-chewed, saddle-worn ass.


End file.
